No Way In

An absorbing story that deals with religion, class, sexual coercion-all issues of topical interest.The writer is a Ramnath Goenka-award-winning journalist and now a well-known fiction writer.Udayan Mukherjee was born in Calcutta. For two decades, he was the face of the Indian financial markets, as anchor and Managing Editor of CNBC. He is the author of the novel Dark Circles, and a collection of short stories, Essential Items, both published by Bloomsbury, and the crime novel A Death in the Himalayas. No Way In is his fourth book.It is the summer leading up to the high-stakes national election of 2014. Sabita, a middle-aged cook, lives with her son, Dinu, in a terrace room of Jol Pori, the South Kolkata mansion of the prosperous Banerjee household comprising Rana, Ila and their son, Shubho. When communal divisions rear their ugly head on the brink of a controversial election, it becomes apparent that Jol Pori, under its benign surface, is nothing but a microcosm of modern-day India with all its destructive divisions. With Dinu's future in mind, Sabita clings on desperately to her perilous position though it is this very threat of violence she had left behind in Assam, her home. But the secrets she has hidden about her past soon reappear to turn her life upside down, forcing her to make the most difficult of choices. No Way In is a searing novel that not only examines the significance of identity in an unequal land, it also asks the vital question: Can the marginalized ever truly work their way into a world of acceptance?A powerful novel that grapples with religious, sexual and class violenceA truly gifted writerA skilful narrator of our troubled timesA powerful writer whose prose tugs at your heartstrings